Let’s not filter virtual street vendors by polarizing the space
With the start of protests in Iran, many online businesses refrained from promotional activities on social media, especially Instagram, as a sign of solidarity with the protesters. A campaign was also launched threatening to unfollow any business that violated this rule. However, with the ongoing filtering of Instagram, the livelihood of thousands has been put at risk.
Attacking small and medium-sized businesses in the virtual space, while larger businesses and market traders with stronger financial backing continue to operate without objection, polarizing based on the idea of ‘either with us or against us’ ultimately risks becoming a factor against the people’s desires. This is because it destroys the source of income and livelihood for many people who are left alone in poor economic conditions.
Influencers are a different case
A social media user wrote that the account of a woman head of household who has started a business using social media to support her life, or a girl or woman selling her handmade products, and a man whose only source of income for his family is this virtual window, is different from those celebrities and influencers with hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers who earn hundreds of millions from advertising.
A famous case is a blogger named Sadaf Beauty, who after a few days of calling for strikes and street protests, announced to her audience that she could no longer support the protesters and that her advertising contracts were more important. Her behavior was met with harsh reactions from Instagram users. Some described her actions as a kind of dirty business from the protests, while others wrote that her saying ‘I place ads amidst reporting about Iran’ means the ultimate business from protests and events inside Iran, even in the United States.
Criticizing these influencers, whose support for and withdrawal from protests are all scenarios aimed at attracting more followers and personal benefits, by leaving their virtual pages and unfollowing them is certainly logical. However, attacking small businesses with at most a few thousand followers is not only unwise but also counterproductive, as continuing this trend ultimately leads to the financial weakening and bankruptcy of the same protesting social body that is currently under the most political, social, and economic pressure.
Let’s not filter virtual street vendors
Virtual street vendors are not mega-capital companies and do not have the ability or capital to benefit from brand changes in crisis situations, nor do they have powerful supporters among the elite. Rather, they are owners of small businesses that collapse with the slightest nudge. They lack any access to rent-seeking opportunities, relationships, or financial and governmental or non-governmental support tools, and their only job support is their audience in the virtual space. Recommending non-activity and threatening to unfollow them follows no logic, especially when published statistics show that the sales drop for small and medium-sized businesses has been 3 to 4 times that of large businesses.
According to statistics, small and medium-sized businesses have seen a 40 to 70 percent sales drop, while large businesses have experienced a 10 to 20 percent drop. Their financial transactions have decreased by 50 to 60 percent, and some reports indicate that some Instagram businesses have seen up to a 100 percent sales drop, meaning their sales have become zero. Most sales of Instagram activists have been related to those who did not have a website or app alongside their page, and during social network and VPN outages, their sales have neared zero.
The president of the Tehran Electronic Commerce Association has also stated that the filtering of Instagram has put 400,000 online businesses in severe crisis and endangered the livelihood of millions. The advisor to the Supreme Council of Islamic Labor Councils of the country also says that today many families, in the form of home businesses, have started businesses with minimal capital, like street vendors on the pavement, and provide for their livelihood in the virtual space or provide supplementary income for their life through internet activity. What will happen to these groups, many of whom are women head of households?
In a situation where filtering has put the jobs and income of thousands at risk of destruction, it is not appropriate for us to act as a secondary filter for small businesses with hasty and mistaken decisions.